President Donald Trump’s irresistible impulse to take on everyone, and anyone, over anything, consequential or not, is a detriment to Republican values and leads to the inescapable question of whether Trumpism needs Trump, any longer, to advance its mission.

Constantly mad about someone, or something, each day brings a new revelation about who, or what, has piqued Trump’s seemingly endless capacity to be offended. Among, even, members of his own party there are profound examples of people the President has found so troubling that he trash talks them at regular intervals. These include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Senator John McCain. Trump is a veritable picture of anger, and that’s troubling, though McConnell does seems fairly deserving of anything negative that comes his way.

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Now, apparently, not even sports is immune from Trump’s rancor. The President has taken on professional football, a whole basketball team, and various millionaire athletes in the same way he once took on every contender for his office, from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, with insults and scorn. Ironically, Trump’s latest foray into the realm of outrage may succeed in initiating a greater, broader, discussion about race in America than Black Lives Matter ever could have done, though it’s doubtful that was the intent.

There’s something else that Trump, probably, didn’t anticipate when he took athletes to task for “taking a knee” during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner before games. That’s a discussion of protesters’ rights. The NFL players who knelt, in a more reverential posture than standing during the national anthem, were not shouting. They weren’t carrying signs, or weapons. Their protests were peaceful, silent, and involved no threat to national security, the border, or jobs. Why was it necessary, then, to attack these exercises of free speech, especially when violent ones are treated equivocally?

Football and basketball players, perhaps baseball, too, when the World Series rolls around, pose no existential threat to the nation, or its President. The current sports-related imbroglio can’t be blamed on former advisor Steve Bannon, Breitbart News, CNN, or Jared and Ivanka’s salty friend, “The Mooch.” Barack Obama didn’t make this happen, nor did it flow from the alternate reality of Kellyann Conway. The face in Trump’s mirror did it all by himself.

Some people who supported Trump are starting to ask others less supportive to stop calling the President a “bum,” or worse. For “the “sake of the office,” they’re urging restraint in language used to characterize the President. There would be more merit to their admonitions if the President weren’t insulter-in-chief. Civility starts at the top.

There are certain expectations of a president, the most basic of which is decorum. In this regard, Trump is a failure, and the failure to act presidential, as he promised he would if elected, imperils the conservative agenda. It, also, causes America’s friends and foes, alike, all over the globe, to mock this great nation and that gives pause in these dangerous times.